Oregon (5-2) vs Boise State (6-1)

Game time: Friday Dec. 1st 6:30 pm PT

Oregon basketball looks to regain its winning footing after stumbling at the PK80 tournament in Portland over the Thanksgiving weekend. Their first true test of the season resulted in a 71-63 opening round loss to UConn followed by an overtime win against DePaul and a loss to Oklahoma. The tournament was a showcase of some of the top programs in the nation, and the revamped Ducks did not play like one of them.

But Friday night will be a redemption round for Dana Altman and the Ducks as the Boise State Broncos come to town with one loss to go with six wins.

Record breakdown

When you look at the Broncos’ first six wins, none of them stand out as overly impressive. Lots of teams they should have beaten, and they did. Their best test was against Iowa State in Round 2 of the San Juan, Puerto Rico tournament that was moved to South Carolina. They lost that game by 11, but played poorly after losing senior G/F Chandler Hutchison to injury early in the game.

Depth

The Broncos have basically played seven guys, and it is unlikely they will expand the bench much at MKA on Friday.

Guards: 6-foot-4 Alex Hobbs, 6-foot-6 Justinian Jessup, 6-foot-1 Lexus Williams, 6-foot-7 Chandler Hutchison, 6-foot-2 Marcus Dickinson

Forwards: 6-foot-9 Christian Sengfelder, 6-foot-11 Zach Haney

Length

Oregon matches up favorably to BSU size-wise, so guarding the perimeter will be key. They do have good size at guard but Hutchison could easily be considered a shooting forward or shooting guard. If the Ducks should be able to get some fouls on Sengfelder or Haney in the first half, they will own the boards and should be able to penetrate to the rim.

Watch out for

Senior Chandler Hutchison is a leader for the Broncos and is the guy that the rest of the team feeds off with his well-rounded game. After being named first team All-Mountain West following his junior season, he decided to forego the NBA draft to return for 2017/18. Hutchison was a four-star recruit out of Mission Viejo High is Boise State’s highest-ranked basketball recruit ever, the No. 98-overall prospect in the nation for the Class of 2014.

Balance

BSU is mostly a perimeter team offensively with their biggest guy Haney in the game for defense and rebounding. The guards will do their scoring, but the rebounding will be more of a team effort.

Big Mo

The Broncos are on a two-game roll but at Oregon will be a whole new adventure for them. The level of competition will be a couple of notches above what they have seen all season.

For the Ducks the trend for the last three is simply the results of PK80, which were not good. Although they were able to scrape together an overtime win in their first game of the consolation round, before losing to the Sooners. They could have won all three of those games had they played a little better.

If they do get their act together on defense it will allow them to do what they do best on offense; run the court. Something they should be able to do against the Boise State Broncos.